I may have mentioned that the spaces that unfold in the game are based on the gardens, fields and countryside around Lumb Bank.

I’ve already shared a glimpse of “level One”, the garden with a path leading to the gate. “Level Two” is inside a walled garden, and “level Three” is a field where a stone circle stands, a circle of stones whose shadows look like people. So this is the Stan (stone) Ley (field). To get some inspiration I went to Stanton Drew near Bristol to look at the stone circles there and the shadows they cast.

 

Stone Shadow

 

Stone Shadow

The circles at Stanton Drew are said to be a wedding party who were turned to stone as they danced on the Sabbath; the sort of moralising story that is repeated across England to explain the presence in the landscape of ancient stone circles and monuments, along with myths of reckless feckless maidens who danced where they shouldn’t. In Lux And The Shadowmaker I want to avoid regurgitating the too-common theme of punished women, so the stones in the Stan Ley will contain people trapped at the whim of the Shadowmaker, not because they were dancing on a Sunday.

The shadows the stones cast will look like people.

Long Shadow

 

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